


Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix)

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: 4 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Sexual Violence, Families of Choice, Gen, Remix, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1431142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Political fostering, yea or nay?</p><p>(Lyanna Stark, fostered at Sunspear; Bran Stark, a ward of Pyke; Cersei Lannister, a lioness in Winterfell; Jon Snow, a southron knight)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live For Just These Twenty Years (the wolves in sheep's clothing remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [l_cloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/gifts).
  * Inspired by [I Believe The Children Are Our Future](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377847) by [l_cloudy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/l_cloudy/pseuds/l_cloudy). 



_i. the first sand snake_

Lyanna Stark had not long turned nine when she was sent to foster at Sunspear.

She was heartsick for Winterfell and for her brothers. The unfamiliar spices in the food made her sick, and the relentless sun burned her pale skin until it peeled off in long, painful strips that reminded her of the horror stories about the Dreadfort that Brandon had frightened her and Benjen with.

Princess Elia sat by Lyanna's bedside throughout her heat-sickness and fever, applying soothing ointments to her burns, and telling her stories of Nymeria and her ten-thousand ships.

Despite these initial setbacks Dorne was home to two things that Lyanna fell in love with straight away: the uncommonly beautiful sand steeds native to the land and Prince Oberyn Martell.

*

The Princess of Dorne was Lyanna's foster mother by agreement with Winterfell, but she was old and in poor health, and none of her children were of an age with Lyanna. Her heir, Prince Doran, was a man grown, married to a noblewoman of Norvos with a little daughter of his own. He did much of the day-to-day ruling of Dorne in his mother's name. Lyanna rather liked the thoughtful, dutiful prince; she thought that Ned might be very much like Doran one day.

Lyanna found herself brought up by maesters and septas; and by Princess Elia and Prince Oberyn, them most of all.

The younger Martell siblings were as close as twins, both unwed and carefree, and together with Elia's companion, Ashara Dayne, they made a special pet of the fierce little northern girl.

Princess Elia was clever and beautiful. She livened up Lyanna's dry lessons on Dornish history by telling her of Nymeria firing her ships, of Princess Mariya Martell snubbing Rhaenys Targaryen and turning her host from Dorne, and of Prince Maron building the Water Gardens for his Targaryen bride.

Elia and Ashara fussed over Lyanna. They told her how pretty she was; Lyanna didn't feel pretty in Dorne, she felt red and sweaty. They showed her how to wear a veil to protect her pale skin from the sun. They gave her jewels to wear in her dark hair, and didn't tell her off when she lost them while exploring the bazaars hidden within the winding walls.

Sometimes they speculated about which man Elia's mother would choose for her to wed, or they'd list all the men in Sunspear who'd fight to become Ashara Dayne's paramour. Lyanna understood the appeal of husbands and paramours as little as she'd understood Brandon's preoccupation with the daughters of their father's bannermen. She would become bored; and frustrated with the lack of attention Lyanna would stamp her feet and tug the jewels Elia had given her from her hair.

Ashara laughed at her, and Elia would always smile and say, "You'll understand when you're older, sweet wolf." 

Lyanna would leave them to their gossip and run to find Oberyn.

Oberyn Martell-- he was Brandon Stark with a spear and a widow's peak, and Lyanna _adored_ him.

Back in Winterfell Lyanna had ridden her pony around the yard with a stick tucked under her arm; she had pretended that she was riding in the lists. She had longed to joust just like her brother Brandon, and she had extracted a solemn promise from him that he would teach her to ride at rings as soon as she was big enough to sit a real horse.

Now she longed for nothing so much as to learn to wield a spear.

" _Please?_ " Lyanna begged Oberyn. 

She plastered her most endearing smile across her face, the one that had always worked on Brandon. It didn't seem to be having much of an effect on Oberyn Martell. "Girls in the north use spears too, you know," she wheedled. 

True, those girls were wildlings and spearwives, not Starks of Winterfell, and certainly not Lord Rickard's only daughter, but still...

"I don't think your father would approve of you learning the spear, sweet wolf," said Elia with a laugh in her voice. She was sitting in the cool shade of an olive tree, watching Lyanna pester her brother and refusing to intercede on his behalf.

Lyanna turned her best wide-eyed gaze on Oberyn. "She's right, you know, my father would _hate_ the idea."

Prince Oberyn laughed deeply, and sure enough though the next day he presented Lyanna with a spear of ash, cut for the height and grip of a ten year old.

*

Princess Elia had a weak chest.

A weak chest but a strong heart, Prince Oberyn told Lyanna.

It was true that she was often ill. Infections and illnesses passed by Oberyn and Lyanna, and that even the infant Princess Arianne could shake off, confined Elia to her bed for days or weeks.

When Lyanna was two-and-ten Elia fell ill with a fever that the maesters said was like to kill her. The princess's mother was recalled from the Water Gardens, Ashara and Doran took turns to sit by her bedside, and Oberyn refused to leave her sickroom; it was the longest that he had stayed in Sunspear all year.

Oberyn was holding Elia's hand when Lyanna crept into the sickly-smelling room and lay down on the bed beside the princess. Even through her clothes and the sweat soaked blankets Lyanna could feel Elia burning up.

Lyanna whispered to Elia of Winterfell, and the North. She told her about the Long Night, and the forty-foot snows that Nan said had come in the winters of her youth. She told Elia, who was a child of Dorne, the land of endless summer, about winter, about snow, ice, and bitter winds, and a cold so fierce that you thought all the world would die of it.

Lyanna didn't know if Elia could hear her, but Oberyn was listening for both of them, his viper's eyes narrowed in concentration.

Elia lived, thanks largely to the maester's herbs and her own will. Prince Oberyn told Lyanna that he planned to remain in Sunspear until he was sure that Elia was well again, and that while he was here he would teach Lyanna how to cast a spear from horseback, if that pleased her.

It pleased Lyanna very much indeed.

*

When Lyanna was four-and-ten she rode out to Shandystone with Prince Oberyn, Princess Elia, and Lady Ashara.

Lyanna had shot up like a vine in the last year; she had yet another new spear to match her new height. She rode her own sand steed now, a snow white gelding that she had named Ice for her father's greatsword.

For the very first time in her life Lyanna wasn't tripping over her feet trying to keep up with longer-legged companions. That was why it pained her that this was to be their last such outing; Elia was to go to King's Landing to marry crown prince Rhaegar, Ashara would go with her as her lady-in-waiting, and Lyanna had no doubts that his sister's absence would mean Oberyn spending even less time in Sunspear.

Elia and Ashara had stayed in the shade of Shandystone - the princess was still recovering from a recent bout of illness - laying out their lunch, and doubtless eating all the olives. Lyanna and Oberyn rode out across the sand dunes; the prince was teaching Lyanna how to track lions, and she had hopes that one day soon he would teach her how to hunt them, too.

A lion hunt, what a thing that would be to include in her next letter to her brothers!

As they crested the dune Lyanna's veil was blown back into her mouth. Although she had acclimatised to the Dornish weather, more or less, her fair skin still burned in direct sunlight so she went almost everywhere veiled.

Prince Oberyn had started a rumour that the reason that Lyanna went about veiled was that her beauty would bring any red-blooded Dornishman to his knees. As Lyanna had been three-and-ten and suffering from a violent outbreak of acne at the time she'd thought this a rather cruel jape.

When Oberyn pulled his horse up Lyanna reined to halt a few feet up the dune; the prince's black stallion was known to bite.

"I should not let her marry this dragon prince."

Lyanna didn't see how Oberyn could stop it, nor why he would want to. But she had always longed for the prince's good opinion, so she stayed silent.

"Tell me, sweet wolf, did you think Rhaegar Targaryen handsome when you saw him?"

Elia and Ashara had begun to ask which young men Lyanna found pleasing, if any. Ashara said that she ought to consider taking a paramour in a year or two, after all her father had sent her to Sunspear to learn the customs of Dorne. Elia had laughed at that and said that in which case it was House Dayne, not House Martell, that Lord Rickard should complain to about his daughter picking up licentious Dornish ways. But this was the first time Prince Oberyn had shown any interest in her developing tastes.

"I--" Lyanna began. Prince Rhaegar had only once come to Sunspear to meet Princess Elia; Lyanna had been two-and-ten, and more interested in the sand steed Prince Doran had promised her for her nameday than in any boy, even a dragon prince. He had played the harp prettily enough, she recalled. "No, I don't think so."

All those times when Elia and Ashara had teased her, telling her that she would understand the appeal of men once she was older-- well, she was beginning to understand. She had thought Ser Arthur Dayne beautiful when he had last visited his sister, and she thought that Oberyn Martell must be the most beautiful man in all Seven Kingdoms. But whatever beauty there was in Rhaegar Targaryen Lyanna mayhap had been too young to see.

Oberyn slammed the butt of his spear into the sand, but his stallion was well trained and didn't startle. "The Mad King is well named, and the last time my mother dispatched me to King's Landing I saw Queen Rhaella, she-- If Rhaegar ever harms Elia I will kill him. Crown prince or no, I will kill him." Prince Oberyn turned his horse so that he was facing Lyanna. "If any man ever hurts you, sweet wolf--"

"I will put my spear through his throat." Lyanna didn't poison the tip of her spear as Oberyn did. Raised by the Martells or no, she was a Stark of Winterfell, but at least now she had a spear.

"I will help you kill the prince," she promised Oberyn. "If he harms our princess, I will help you kill him."

Oberyn regarded her, his dark eyes flashing and his mouth curving into a smile. "We may make a snake out of you yet, sweet wolf."

 

_ii. the sea wolf_

It was Asha Greyjoy who had first coined the name the Sea Wolf, when Bran was no more than the frightened six year old who had first washed up on the shores of Pyke, feeling more like a piece of driftwood than a Stark of Winterfell.

"Bran is no fit name for a boy of the Iron Islands," she'd said, "and the Iron Islands are no place for a boy who weeps."

Asha had brushed the tears from his cheeks with the back of her hand. It was the gentlest touch Bran had received since his mother had embraced him at White Harbor.

Bran could not remember a time when he had not known that his fate was to go to the Iron Islands as a ward of Balon Greyjoy. It had all been arranged before his birth. Maester Luwin said that it had to do with the uneasy alliance that the Starks and the Baratheons had made with the Greyjoys during Robert's Rebellion. The Greyjoys had smashed the Lannister fleet at Casterly Rock, King Robert had kept Lord Greyjoy's eldest son and heir as his honoured _guest_ , and in return the lord reaper of Pyke got a Stark.

Robb was their father's heir, and Lord Balon would not accept a girl or a bastard, and so it was Bran who boarded the ship for Pyke.

Bran hadn't cried on the dock, neither had his mother, although Bran thought she'd wanted to. 

Bran's lord father had crouched to look him in the eyes. He'd squeezed Bran's shoulders and said, "Be brave, for me and your mother, and for King Robert."

Bran had never met King Robert, and he didn't know why the king wished for him to be raised by krakens. But his father had told him to be brave, and Lady Asha had tried to be kind and had named him the Sea Wolf, so it was for their sakes rather than the king's that he would try to become Brandon Stark, the Sea Wolf.

It was easier said than done.

*

Heights held no fear for Bran. From his very first day on Pyke he'd taken pleasure in dashing across the swaying rope bridges.

Theon had told him of a visiting lord from the Reach who'd made it halfway across the bridge to the Bloody Keep before freezing in terror and having to be carried the rest of the way, clinging to the back of his own squire.

Bran climbed endlessly and fearlessly. The cliffs beneath the castle, the castle walls themselves, towers and rooftops so broken and crumbling that not even those born in the castle would venture up there anymore... these were his natural home.

He never fell. Well, he'd slipped once or twice in the beginning, but that was before he learned not to use anything coated with slippery green lichen as a hand or foot hold.

He discovered all sorts of hiding places: forgotten caves in the cliff-face, as well as those abandoned rooftops and towers. He hid from Maron Greyjoy, who seemed to take special pleasure in tormenting the greenlander boy, and whose father showed little inclination to stop him. But most of all he hid from the Crow's-Eye, Euron Greyjoy.

Bran was hiding in an abandoned turret of the Sea Tower. He was perched in an empty window, looking down at the waves breaking over the rocks below.

A dark haired head poked out of a window a few floors down, where the tower was still inhabited. Asha Greyjoy twisted her neck and squinted up at Bran. "There you are. Come down, boy, I want to talk to you."

If it had been anyone but Asha - or Theon in one of his better moods - Bran might have stayed where he was. Instead he scrambled down the outside of the wall.

Asha's window was slightly inset, and Bran had to hang by his fingertips and swing himself inside. Had he misjudged his jump there was nothing to catch him but rocks and salt water, but he landed safely in front of Asha Greyjoy and flashed her an impish smile.

"You climb well, eh?" said Asha.

"Better than I swim."

Asha gestured out the window to the unwelcoming rocks below. "Best not to fall, then. Come with me, squirrel, I've a job for you."

Asha led him down to the docks of Lordsport, past the half constructed hull that would someday be her own ship.

They rowed out to the _Iron Fury_ , the flagship of the Iron Fleet, captained by Victarion Greyjoy. 

Victarion was the uncle of Asha's who Bran misliked the least. When he struck Bran there was no particular malice to it; he thought that all small boys could benefit from unpredictable violence. But Bran was nervous in his presence, and glad that he wasn't aboard the ship.

Asha stopped by the mainmast and said, "Right, squirrel, up to the crow's nest, take a good look around, then back down and tell me what you saw. Quick as you like."

*

Bran wrote to his parents at Winterfell like a dutiful son. He mentioned his foster father only briefly, and _never_ mentioned Asha's oldest brother or uncles.

He did write of his foster sister, Asha, of how she was teaching him to navigate by the stars, and how to read the weather so he knew when a storm was coming. He told them that she was to be captain of her own ship soon enough, and that he'd helped her decide on the name _Black Wind_ for it.

He wrote too of his foster brother, Theon. At least in part. Theon could be unkind at times, delighting in being the bully rather than the bullied for once. But he'd taught Bran to draw a bow, and sometimes he and Bran would ride out together shooting down seabirds and raiding their nests for eggs.

He told his mother that he could now swim like a fish as well as climb like a squirrel. In truth, he remembered little of his mother beyond red hair and gentle hands; but he knew that she was a Tully and that her sigil was a trout, and he thought that she would be pleased.

*

Bran had passed his eleventh nameday when his life on the Iron Islands vastly improved.

Asha Greyjoy had her promised ship, and she had elected to anchor it at Harlaw rather than Pyke. Her crew was to leave with her; including Bran as ship's boy.

Even Theon - who increasingly chafed at Asha's attempts to shield him from the crueler members of their family, saying that he didn't need protection from a _woman_ \- decided to come with them.

Asha took care to introduce Bran to her Uncle Rodrik, the Lord of Ten Towers, as Brandon Stark of the blood of Winterfell, known as the Sea Wolf. It made no matter, within a week half the castle was referring to Bran as squirrel. They didn't mean it unkindly, and Bran found that he didn't mind.

Theon was teaching Bran how to fight, and from Asha he was learning to be a sailor, but Lord Rodrik was appalled by how much the less practical aspects of Bran's education had been allowed to slide. He took it upon himself to teach Bran history, geography, and politics for three hours every day. Bran complained for appearance's sake, but in truth he enjoyed these lessons. 

The clashing architecture of Ten Towers was a challenge and delight to a boy who loved climbing, and for the remainder of his boyhood Bran was happy on Harlaw.

*

When Bran was five-and-ten he was permitted to go reaving with the crew of the _Black Wind_. 

Lord Balon's heir in King's Landing was dead; a flux, according to the message that came by raven, and in his grief the Lord of Pyke ordered a raid on Lannisport.

The Westerlands had been weak ever since the Lannisters yoked their fate to the Targaryens and fell with them. They were ripe for plundering, according to Lord Greyjoy.

After they returned and made anchor at Harlaw, Bran climbed to the top of the Black Tower and didn't come down for a day and night, sleeping curled up in a ball on the roof.

It was Asha who found Bran. If Theon had come looking he would have bellowed out the window for Bran to come inside, then given up when the boy refused to move from his perch. But Asha hoisted herself out the window and scaled the wall to where Bran sat. The Black Tower was the tallest of all ten towers, but it had handholds aplenty.

"Killing takes everyone hard the first time, Squirrel--"

"It wasn't the killing."

Bran had seen Asha plant her axe in a man's skull and he had laughed to see it. From his position in the crow's nest he had seen a man take a swing at his captain's exposed back, and he had loosed an arrow which had taken the man right in the throat. Bran had been proud of himself; it had been a difficult shot that even Theon would have been pleased to make.

It wasn't the killing, and it hadn't been the stealing, either. Bran had lived among the Ironborn for long enough not to be particularly squeamish about either.

"The woman, then?" asked Asha.

Bran nodded. He had not been able to see her from the crow's nest, but he had heard her pleading as the men - men Bran had known for years, men who'd praised his sharp eyes and called him squirrel and little sea wolf - took turns raping her.

"I don't like it either," said Asha, "but I cannot be the only captain in the Iron Fleet who does not allow her crew to take women as plunder. If I did that I would not long have a crew."

"Theon says it's better with a girl who wants you."

Asha snorted. "Theon thinks all the girls want him, but he's right enough. Has he taken you to the brothel in Lordsport yet?"

Bran blushed like a beet, and Asha took that as her answer. "Don't let him bully you," she advised. "Only go if you want to."

"I don't think I could," said Bran. Not soon, anyway, he'd be thinking of that poor Lannisport girl screaming and sobbing.

"Do you remember I once told you that the Iron Islands are no place for a tender-hearted boy?" Bran nodded. "You and Theon, both, my soft-hearted boys."

"Theon isn't--" Bran began. He had only seen Theon briefly after they'd disembarked, and his foster brother had been deep in his cups; he'd thrown a wineskin at Bran and cursed him.

Theon hadn't been with them on the _Black Wind_ ; at his father's command he'd sailed with Euron Crow's-Eye. Bran wondered what he'd seen, and what he might have been made to do.

"Oh, Theon _is_ ," said Asha. "The Iron Islands breed hard men and kill sweet boys, and Theon is both and it's twisting him all up inside. Do me a favour, Bran?"

"Anything," said Bran. He'd lost a measure of respect for Asha today, but she was still his captain, as well as his foster sister and his first friend on the Iron Islands.

"Stay tender-hearted for as long as you can."

 

_iii. the lioness of winterfell_

Cersei sometimes wondered if she'd been sent to the frozen wasteland of the North in order to keep her from Jaime. 

First her lady mother had decreed that Cersei and Jaime must have separate bedchambers. Then, after she was gone, Lord Tywin had sent Jaime to squire at Crakehall, and sent Cersei to Winterfell as the intended of Brandon Stark. 

Ten was young for it, but as Cersei's Aunt Genna said: all that meant was that she'd have years to beguile the young lord. But Brandon Stark was older and truly as wild as a wolf, and not likely to be beguiled by a ten year old -- not even a lioness of Casterly Rock. 

Her betrothed and foster father had little time for her, so Cersei spent most of her time with Lyanna Stark, who was at least of an age with her. 

The Northern girl was a little rough around the edges; the bottoms of her gowns were always muddy and torn, and her hair was always windswept. Back home Cersei wouldn't have accepted a maid who looked so much like she'd been dragged through a hedge. But she realised that she must make allowances; Winterfell's daughter was little more than a wildling, after all.

Little Benjen Stark trailed around after them. Little brothers were irksome, that was their function, but compared to Tyrion Cersei did not mind Benjen so much.

*

"Are you going to marry my brother?" Lyanna asked one day after Cersei had been at Winterfell for more than half a year.

Lyanna and Benjen had taken Cersei to the godswood to show her the heart tree; Cersei was unimpressed.

Benjen had wandered off, and Lyanna had picked up a sturdy looking stick and was taking vicious swings at the branches of nearby trees. Cersei was becoming used to Lyanna's occasional acts of wanton destruction - even if she could hear her father's voice in her head telling her that it was no sort of behaviour for a girl of noble birth.

"Which brother?" Cersei asked just to annoy Lyanna. 

Benjen was off splashing in the godswood pool, and not long out of swaddling clothes. Cersei hadn't yet met the famous Ned, who was fostered at the Eyrie; Cersei hoped he felt as awkward and out of place there as she did in Winterfell.

Lyanna rolled her eyes, and took another swing with her stick. "Brandon."

"My father arranged it with yours," Cersei replied, not wanting to say that Brandon had never said more than ten words to her, and obviously considered her little more than his sister's playmate. "And the wedding would not be for many years, anyway."

Lyanna stopped her assault on the foliage and peered at Cersei. "You'll be quite pretty when you're grown," she declared. "At least as pretty as those servant girls Brandon spends so much time chasing."

Cersei scowled. Lyanna was just a savage little Northern girl; what did she know of lionesses? Part of her wanted to pick up a stick and hit Lyanna with it, a bigger part of her wished Jaime were here so that he could hit Lyanna for her. 

Instead Cersei listened to the voice in her head that sounded like her father. She picked up her skirts, raised her chin, and stalked away. 

*

Jaime visited Winterfell, and after two years apart Cersei was so pleased to see him that she almost forgave him for bringing Tyrion.

"Father's back from King's Landing," Jaime explained with a shrug, "and with Uncle Gerion gone... he wanted to come."

"To see Winterfell," Tyrion insisted from somewhere around Jaime's knees, wanting to make it clear that he hadn't travelled all this way to see something as uninteresting as a sister. 

Cersei pawned Tyrion off on Lyanna, who was always pleased to show off the castle. Honestly, Cersei sometimes thought that her foster sister would be happy to never wed and to live and die as the lady of Winterfell.

Cersei led Jaime to her chambers where they could catch up in private.

"Father wants me to marry some Tully girl," Jaime told her, "after I win my spurs."

"I suppose I'll be expected to wed Brandon at the same time." Cersei still hadn't decided if the notion of Brandon Stark pleased her or not, but for Jaime's sake she affected a glum tone. She certainly didn't want Jaime to marry the Tully girl.

"I could challenge him for you," Jaime offered. "Lord Crakehall's been teaching me how to duel."

Cersei lifted her palm to stifle her laugh. It wasn't that the idea didn't please her, it was that at two-and-ten Jaime was still of a height with her, a good head and half shorter than Brandon Stark.

"Come on," said Cersei before Jaime could take offense. "I'm tired, and you must be too after your journey." 

They napped in Cersei's bed, curled up together like the lion cubs that they were. Cersei woke feeling better rested than she had since she'd first come to Winterfell.

*

Cersei had never understood Jaime's fascination with horses - or Lyanna's, for that matter. She had learned to sit one well enough to ride from Lannisport to Casterly Rock without embarrassing herself, and her father hadn't insisted on anything more.

She supposed that in Jaime's case it made some sense, if you planned to be a knight then you must ride well. Lyanna was just being contrary for the sake of being contrary. 

Lyanna had been summoned to her father's solar that afternoon and informed of her betrothal to Robert Baratheon. Afterwards she'd resolved to make some act of defiance, futile though it may be. 

Lyanna had been surprised when Cersei caught her in the stables at midnight and insisted on coming with her. 

"If you get ripped apart by wolves," Cersei said by way of an explanation, "then I want to be there to watch it."

Lyanna warily agreed, liberated two horses, and they rode out through the open hunter's gate.

"I understand, you know," said Cersei. She rarely made overtures of friendship herself, preferring to act as though Lyanna's friendship was a burden that she was bearing with grace and forbearance. But the circumstances _were_ exceptional. 

"How could you possibly understand?" Lyanna snorted. " _Robert Baratheon,_ of all the--"

"I'm a Lannister. I belong at Casterly Rock with Jaime. Not freezing to death at the end of the world with nobody to talk to but you."

They were an hour out of Winterfell - Cersei was already saddle-sore and considering leaving Lyanna to her fate - when Brandon caught up with them. 

It was about time. Before she'd gone to the stables Cersei had shaken Benjen awake and told him to wait for half an hour and then tell Brandon where they'd gone. Benjen had looked puzzled but had agreed without asking any questions. 

Cersei thought that Benjen would make some girl a good husband some day. He knew how to do as he was bid, how to keep a secret, and between Lyanna and Cersei he was well used to girls with fierce tempers. But if Cersei had wanted a child-husband she would have taken Viserys Targaryen when he was on offer.

Lyanna sulked all the way back to Winterfell. She guessed that Cersei must have told, but the bonds of sisterhood only went so far, and Cersei was not about to die for Lyanna's fit of temper.

Brandon flashed his laughing smile at Cersei and said, "The idea of marrying me never made you want to run away in the night, did it?"

*

After their midnight adventure Brandon paid more attention to Cersei. She was four-and-ten now, recently flowered, with budding breasts and softly curved hips.

Brandon became endlessly flirtatious. All at once their relationship became one of flowers, compliments, and affected gallantry. Cersei was charmed; she might have been more charmed if she hadn't watched him put on the same act for a different girl a month for the last four years. 

Lyanna had grown quite pretty too, Cersei reluctantly conceded, in a wild sort of way.

Jaime visited again. Cersei was surprised at how tall and broad he'd grown; she had to stand on her toes to embrace him. He'd probably be a match for Brandon now, she thought, if he was still of a mind to challenge the Northern lordling.

"Your brother's grown very handsome," Lyanna noted. 

"He'll be the handsomest man in the realm," said Cersei. "With one exception, of course."

" _My_ brother," said Lyanna with a sly grin at Cersei.

Cersei nodded agreeably; she had actually been thinking of Rhaegar Targaryen.

Jaime brought Cersei a gift of a lion's pelt. "To keep you warm, and remind you of me," he said. 

Cersei wrapped the pelt around her shoulders and let her mind conjure an image of her fierce golden twin hunting a lion in her name. 

"They never thrived under Casterly Rock," said Jaime. "Father wanted to burn the body; he said I could only have the pelt if I skinned it myself."

Cersei's daydream shattered. This was the skin of one of those scrawny, mangy beasts they'd kept caged under the Rock? She let the pelt slide from her shoulders, and wiped hands surreptitiously on her skirts; she wouldn't have been surprised to find that the beast had fleas.

"Something wrong?"

"No, it's just-- Jaime, I've missed you so much." That, at least, was the truth.

*

Their fifteenth name day had passed when Cersei received a letter from Jaime. The twins wrote to each as much as they could, but Jaime's letter was different. It was nearly ten pages; Jaime's hand was messy with haste, and it was filled with misspellings and crossings outs. But it was in earnest; oh, how it was in earnest.

Jaime wrote that their father wanted to set a date for his wedding to Catelyn Tully, as well as Cersei's to Brandon Stark. He wrote that he wanted to leave before his wedding took place, but only if Cersei would come with him. He could get gold, he wrote, he would sell his sword if they needed more. A golden life in the free cities with her golden twin, or the cold North and faithless Brandon Stark, that was the choice Jaime offered her.

There were other things too. Things that Jaime didn't put into words, but that had always been there between the lines and under the surface. Things that distance, years, and Brandon Stark and Catelyn Tully were supposed to have finally put a stop to.

The letter finished: _I love you, I love you, I love you._

Cersei read the letter more than once; she wept over it. Then she dried her eyes, because lionesses didn't weep, walked to her fireplace and cast the letter into the flames.

*

Cersei and Lyanna were watching Brandon teaching Benjen the art of swordplay from a window. Cersei's palms itched, and Lyanna was gouging a hole in the wooden sill with her dagger.

"I've decided that I'm going to marry your brother," Cersei announced.

If Lyanna found it odd that after five years of betrothal Cersei had only decided this now she didn't say so. Instead she said, "I've decided that I'm not going to marry Robert Baratheon, no matter what I have to do."

Cersei nodded. "Good. We've decided, then."

 

_iv. the knight of the honeywine_

For many years afterward Jon had suspected that Lady Stark had been behind the decision to send him to squire in the south. 

If his father had no longer wanted him at Winterfell, Jon did not understand why he could not send him to foster with one of the Stark bannermen. Robb, just turned eight and earnest, had rushed to assure Jon that _of course_ their father wanted him. 

Whether Robb was right or no, Jon was nine years old when he departed Winterfell for Oldtown.

Jon knew he should be proud. House Hightower was a great House; old in honour they could trace their lineage back to the Gardner kings of the Reach. And Baelor Hightower, known as Brightsmile, was a great knight: many trueborn sons of the south would have been eager to take Jon's place as his squire.

But Jon could not help but think that Lady Catelyn must truly despise him to want the greater part of Westeros between them.

It was not until many years later that Jon confided his belief that his stepmother had sent him to Oldtown in Sam. 

"My mother did send me to Oldtown," said Sam. "Of course, if she hadn't sent me to the Citadel my father was going to send me to the Wall. I don't think I would have done well as a Brother of the Night's Watch."

Jon smiled sideways at Sam and said, "You might have surprised yourself." They'd both burst out laughing.

*

Samwell Tarly was the first and finest friend that Jon made in Oldtown.

Jon was three-and-ten, and he'd been living in the Hightower for near enough four years. Ser Baelor was pleased with both his service and his training. Jon showed great promise with the sword, he said, although rather less with the lance.

Ser Baelor flashed his easy smile at Jon. "It'll be the melee for you, I think, rather than the lists."

There had not been a tournament at Winterfell while Jon had lived there. His lord father believed that swords and lances were for the battlefield, not the tourney ground. But Ser Baelor was a renowned tourney knight, so Jon held his tongue.

The knight had an easy way with Jon, and never seemed to look down on him for his birth. The same could not be said for the rest of the Hightower. Bastards were despised in the south; bad enough to be a Flowers or a Hill, but to be a Snow... and Jon was not a boy who forgot an insult easily. He had earned the cautious respect of some of his fellow squires for his prowess in the training yard, but he had earned the jealousy of as many others. 

Jon was walking towards the armory one day when he came across two pages and a squire mocking a hugely fat boy in the dress of a novice of the Citadel. They had knocked his books from his arms and were kicking them across the yard. Jon was carrying a sword. It was Ser Baelor's; Jon was supposed to be taking it have its edge honed. It made a hugely satisfying scraping noise as he drew it, and it was even more satisfying to see the bullies take to their heels. 

"Thank you, _thank you_ ," said the fat boy, scrambling in the dirt for his books. Jon crouched to help. "I'm from the Citadel. Lady Malora borrowed some books from our library, and I'm supposed to see that they're returned safely. I'm Samwell, by the way. Samwell Tarly."

"I'm Jon--" Jon gritted his teeth, he told himself that this fat boy's disgust would mean nothing to him. "Jon Snow."

But Samwell's round face remained open and friendly. He smiled shyly at Jon and said, "You can call me Sam, if you'd like." 

*

Jon starting spending evenings in the Quill & Tankard with Sam and a rotating cast of novices and acolytes. 

The first and only time he drank himself sick it was on the inn's famously strong cider. The next morning Ser Baelor made an example of Jon and his vicious hangover in the training yard. After that Jon got into the habit of nursing a single cup of summer wine throughout the evening.

The serving girls at the Quill & Tankard were for sale to those had the coin - something Jon tried not to dwell on. Baelor Brightsmile would probably have laughed and told him that all young men had needs, but Jon's father wouldn't have approved. So Jon blushed and looked away when the girls called him _Ser Snow_ and teasingly begged a feel of his muscles.

"They never ask to feel my muscles," commented Sam, to great amusement.

Jon found that he enjoyed spending time with the novices and acolytes of the Citadel, more so than the squires and would-be-knights who were his peers.

There were bastards in training at the Citadel. "No bastard with wit and a thirst for knowledge was ever turned away from the Citadel," Alleras the Sphinx told Jon with a wry smile.

"It's a pity my talents run in other directions, then," said Jon.

"Jon's going to be a great knight someday," said Sam loyally.

*

Ser Baelor was the Hightower with whom Jon spent the most time. But Lord Leyton, lord of the Hightower, and his daughter Malora, known as the Mad Maid, took an interest in their Northern fosterling too.

Lady Malora was fond of telling Jon that blood would tell... whatever she meant by that.

And there was Ser Gerold Hightower, once of the Kingsguard. He had taken a terrible wound in the final days of Robert's Rebellion, and retired to obscurity in Oldtown. The White Bull took an interest in Jon, too, and once a year Jon was summoned to the old knight's gloomy chamber; his rooms were filled with candles though Jon had never seen them lit. 

Ser Gerold was confined to his bed - the wound he'd taken to his leg had festered and he'd lost the limb - but he struggled to sit up and peer at Jon. "You have the look of a Stark, boy," he'd said, sounding disappointed. 

Jon wondered if the woman Lord Eddard would never speak of had been a Hightower of Oldtown? If that was why he'd been fostered here? He talked to Sam about it, and his friend turned up at the Quill & Tankard with an enormous and extremely boring looking book called _The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms_.

Sam sat with the book open on his lap. "Lady Malora is about the right age to be your mother--"

Jon rolled his eyes and said, "There's a reason she's called the Mad _Maid_ , Sam."

"--But I don't see how she can ever have met your father."

*

When Jon was five-and-ten his father became the Hand of the King, and Jon had hopes of travelling to King's Landing for the Hand's Tourney. He even entertained a foolish daydream about entering the melee as a mystery knight, defeating all comers before revealing himself to father, who in Jon's dream was always impossibly proud. 

But Lord Leyton required his eldest son at the Hightower, Ser Baelor required the services of his squire, and it had only ever been a foolish dream.

Jon nursed his sorrows with Sam at the Quill & Tankard. "I always wanted to be my father's trueborn son," he said.

Sam smiled sadly. "The only person who wanted me to be Randyll Tarly's trueborn son less than I did was Lord Randyll."

*

When Jon was six-and-ten his father was beheaded on the steps of the Great Sept, his brother Robb called his banners and marched south, and Ser Gerold Hightower summoned Jon. For the first time Jon could remember the candles in Ser Gerold's chamber were lit.

On that night Jon discovered that he was no more a Hightower than he was the trueborn son of Eddard Stark; he wasn't even the baseborn son of Lord Eddard.

Ser Gerold told him that he was the son of Rhaegar Targaryen by Lyanna Stark; Lord Eddard had taken him to Winterfell to spend his childhood in ignorance, and then sent him south to learn the truth when he reached manhood. He also told Jon that he had Targaryen kin across the Narrow sea: a half-brother in the Free Cities, and an aunt in Old Volantis who was rumoured to have hatched three dragon eggs.

Jon left Ser Gerold's with his head spinning. 

The White Bull expected him to rise for the returning Targaryens, along with the Hightowers and the Martells, to become a rallying point for the loyalists. His brother Robb expected him to ride north to join with his army, to avenge the father who had been no father of Jon's at all.

When Ser Baelor intercepted him in the yard Jon thought that the knight had been sent to pressure him for an answer. "I need to think--"

Baelor Brightsmile put his hand to his sword. "You need to kneel, boy."

"What?"

"Whatever side you fight for," he said, "you'll do it as a knight."

Jon considered refusing. Targaryen or no, he was still half a Stark, and Lord Eddard had not been a knight, nor was Robb. But that was in the North where knights were the exception. Jon had been raised in the Reach, listening to courtly songs and tales of knightly chivalry. He may not have any time for knights who painted their armour and were better suited to the tourney ground than the battlefield, but Jon had long dreamed of kneeling before some great knight and hearing the words, _in the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave..._

Jon would never be a knight like Ser Loras Tyrell, but he could be a knight in his own fashion. He knelt, and Baelor Brightsmile dubbed him with his sword and bid him rise as, "Ser Jon of--?"

The only place in Oldtown where Jon had ever felt truly at home was sitting on the terrace of the Quill & Tankard drinking summer wine with Sam. 

Any knight who named himself after a tavern would be setting himself up for a lifetime of mockery, but the Quill & Tankard had been built on an isle in the Honeywine River.

"Ser Jon of the Honeywine."

*

Jon sought out Sam, and found him reading by torchlight on the terrace of the Quill & Tankard.

"What will you do?" he asked.

"I don't know," Jon replied honestly. "I do not know these Targaryen relations, and as for my brother Robb..."

"As for your brother?"

Jon and Robb had written to each after Jon came to Oldtown, but their differing interests and experiences, as well as a mutual lack of interest in spending much time at their letters, meant that their correspondence had dried up over the years. 

"We were friends when we were children, but I haven't seen him in many years. In truth, you are my brother more than any other, Sam."

Sam smiled shyly. "We could always leave Oldtown, you and I. We could go to the Free Cities, or the Summer Islands. I bet the Sphinx would be able to find us a ship."

"It's a nice dream, Sam, but what would we be in the Free Cities: a sellsword and a halfmaester?"

"You said yourself that you're a knight now, and I've nearly finished forging my chain. Look, I've even got a link of Valyrian Steel. We could be a... a knight errant and a wizard!"

It _was_ a nice dream. "A knight errant and a wizard, eh?"


End file.
